At least seven high-profile locations were hit in India's financial capital, including two luxury hotels where dozens of hostages are being held.
The buildings are now ringed by troops. Gunmen are also said to be holding people captive in an office block.
Police say four suspected terrorists have been killed and nine arrested.
As day broke in Mumbai, the situation on the ground was still confused with reports of gunfire and explosions at between seven and 16 locations.
The city's main commuter train station, a hospital, a restaurant and two hotels - locations used by foreigners as well as local businessmen and leaders - were among those places caught up in the violence.
Commandos have surrounded the two hotels, the Taj Mahal Palace and the Oberoi Trident, where it is believed that the armed men are holding dozens of hostages.

Sunday, 23 November 2008

Argentine man kills himself on TV

By Daniel SchweimlerBBC News, Buenos Aires

A former police chief in Argentina, wanted for alleged crimes against human rights, has shot himself dead in front of television cameras.

Mario Ferreyra was giving an interview on top of a water tank at his home in the northern province of Tucuman.

Police were coming to arrest him when he killed himself.

Mr Ferreyra was wearing his customary black shirt and cowboy hat and told the interviewer that he was innocent and had not committed any crimes.

He then told his wife, Maria, that he would love her forever, pulled a pistol from his boot and shot himself behind the ear.

'Pact of silence'

The Cronica television cameras were still rolling, transmitting live, as the distraught family gathered round.

Police, who had come to arrest Mr Ferreyra at his farm, came running, but it was too late. He was dead.

Mr Ferreyra was accused of kidnapping and torture during the military government that ran Argentina between 1976 and 1983.

The victims' families say the suicide was part of a pact of silence - that the ex-police chief would not testify against former colleagues accused of kidnapping and killing some of the tens of thousands of Argentines who died during a period that became known as the "Dirty war".